Shade of Light is a quick and easy dark fantasy read that's perfect for your fall TBR.
The story focuses on Adele, a young woman with mysterious powers as she navigates the world in an attempt to uncover the truths about her path.
The worldbuilding was original and intriguing. I enjoyed the concepts of the magic system (

Spoiler

especially the angels versus demons

) and I think that there's room to expand upon the possibilities in future books.
The plot was extremely fast-paced and while I didn't find it to be overly complex, I enjoyed it. This book is probably one I would recommend to readers unfamiliar with the fantasy genre or who are just beginning to read dark fantasy because it's easy to comprehend and the magic system/plot is relatively uncomplicated. There were a handful of twists too. I will say that I found the end to be a bit anticlimactic and that I wish the story addressed Adele's past with the General a little more, but those were my only main complaints.
As far as POV characters go, Adele was pretty cool. I did find her to be a bit rude and unrelatable at times, but that can be attributed to her past. Her internal monologue was more tolerable than those of other main characters. Personally, I liked Elijah and Rune more than Adele. Elijah was sweet and I wish we learned more about him. I liked Rune because she fell into some of my favorite character tropes (

Spoiler

non-human character who is clueless about the workings of the human world, wings, etcOverall, I enjoyed the book and while it's not the most nuanced of fantasy stories, it's a great read for beginning fantasy readers. (Also, it's more fantasy-focused than romance, which is a nice switch from the romantasy that seems to have the book world in a chokehold right now).

Official Rating: 3.75/5
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the free e-ARC.

"'Heroes are just villains with worse survival instincts and moral superiority complexes.'"

It's been about a year since I read this duology for the first time, but I could not remember what happened in the second book so I decided it was time for a reread.
Overall, the second book is better than the first. It fleshes out the characters more and it really drives in the urgency of the situation at hand.
While Gavin and Alistair were my favorite characters by far, Isobel, Reid, and Briony grew on me a little. I still have my issues with Briony, and Reid creeps me out, but I didn't hate them as much as I did the first time reading.
Of the three main romantic subplots present in the story, I felt that two of them were very surprising but also they fit relatively well together.

Spoiler

When I first picked up the series, I saw a lot of fanart of Alistair and Gavin and I was confused because they're not a thing in book one, but once I read book two I realized why. Isobel and Reid are a bit weird to me...I don't know why, but something just feels off about them.

All in all, this duology is a great series for anyone looking for a magical "Hunger Games" type scenario or a modern, dark fantasy that will leave you questioning who the heroes truly are.

Spoiler

"'The thing is, I've died before. So I shouldn't be this upset, or this scared. Because I know that when it's over, I won't hurt. I won't want these things anymore, because I won't want anything. I won't be anything. So maybe the way it hurts right now doesn't matter. But I really want it to matter. I-I don't want to die knowing that everything I've suffered through meant nothing.'"

Actual Rating: 4.5/5 stars

I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed.

Foundryside has been sitting close to the top of my TBR for a long time now. I mean, fantasy heists and found family? Those are my favorite tropes, and the sheer amount of five-star reviews made me super excited for it.
There were parts of this book I liked: namely Clef, the ways the characters abused the magic system, and the scenes from 70-80% through the book.
However, I couldn't get into the story as a whole. At about 63%, I seriously debated DNFing. I didn't care for the characters and I honestly had no desire to see the book through to the ending. I contemplated putting it aside and restarting sometime again, but the thought of rereading the first 60% made me want to stop even more. I told myself to tough it out until 70%, and I'm glad I did because otherwise, the rating would've been much lower.
Maybe one day I'll reread it and have a new respect for it, but as of right now, I seem to be in the minority that didn't really enjoy the book.
Actual Rating: 2.75/5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the free e-book.

This book is a love letter to dog lovers everywhere.

I went into Our Divine Mischief assuming it was a wholesome little story about a girl, a boy, and a dog. Instead, I got an adventure full of mythology, humor, and love. It reminded me a bit of a lighter version of The Drowned Woods. I really enjoyed the plot, but I think I loved the characters even more. Áila was strong and stubborn; Hew was compassionate and devoted; and Orail was adorable.
You see, the dog gets a POV in this one, and she speaks in poems. Her chapters start as fragmented bursts of feelings but she becomes more eloquent as the story progresses. There is an overarching theme in her chapters as well: an undying love for her owner.
The author said that she was inspired to write this book because her dog of twelve years passed away and I think she captured that perfectly. This book was beautifully written and to be honest I am still crying over it now.
It's a perfect story for dog lovers of all kinds.

Thanks to Netgalley for the free e-ARC.

The Smoke Thieves has been pretty close to the top of my TBR for a while now because any fantasy book with found-family elements and multiple POVs is basically an automatic must-read. Now I've finally gotten around to it, and I don't know quite what to think.
The weird thing is, I enjoyed the book despite the fact that it felt like almost nothing happened. I think that the five POVs really worked in the story's favor. Usually, I don't like books as much if I can't get a feel for the overarching plot, but I didn't mind as much because I was entertained just getting to know the characters and the world.
Admittedly, Ambrose has the weakest POV: he just simps for Catherine the whole time, which wasn't horrible until I learned he's 21 and she's 16... and his entire personality is just HER. I also didn't love Catherine, but I did respect her. I've read the "betrothed to some prince" trope too many times to count, but she genuinely wanted the neighboring kingdom to like her, and she made much smarter decisions than I expected. Tash, March, and Edyon were by far the highlights of the story. Tash's POVs were super interesting and I really liked her character and how unique she was. March and Edyon were also very unique; their dynamic was quite different than anything I'd read before. I look forward to seeing what shenanigans they can get into in the next book. Overall, I really liked seeing how the characters interact with each other and how their plots interweaved throughout the novel.
While The Smoke Thieves felt like a prequel to a series or an introduction to a world, it sets up for a fun and action-packed fantasy story about demons, royalty, and found family.
4/5

We need more families fighting the Faerie folk in books.

Shadows Over London is one of the few Faerie books that I actually enjoyed. I'm not generally a fan of the Fae books because they always tend to follow the same tropes, but this story didn't. Rather than focus on a love story between teenage girls and men hundreds of years older than them, this book follows the story of a family divided by their loyalties to the Fae courts.
Justice is a young girl whose life is thrown out of balance when her father returns to London and forces her entire family to flee to a strange mansion in the woods. It turns out her parents are on opposing sides of the upcoming Faerie war, and the siblings must choose who to believe. There's a good deal of action, some mysteries that need to be solved, and some really cool plot points are set up for the next book. It took me a bit to get into, but once Justice, Faith, and Henry were on the run, I read it basically in two sittings.
Although Justice is the main character, there are two other POVs - two of her brothers, Henry and Benedict - and I actually liked them more than Justice. Henry is fourteen and he's just an innocent baby and I will not be happy if anything bad happens to him. I also thought Benedict was interesting because he's been out of the house for years so he doesn't really know his siblings, but I also like where his story is going. Neither of them had much closure and I want to read the next book ASAP purely to find out what happens to them. I didn't really like Justice or Faith as much, but I can see myself liking them more in the sequel. Justice was cool and I liked her magic, I just didn't love her stubborn personality at times.
If you're looking for a quick fantasy that focuses on family over romance, but still has enough action to keep your attention, Shadows Over London is the book for you.
4/5

"It was the sort of kiss that gives you faith in the Stars and makes you realize they despise you."

Starlight Jewel reminded me of the Cruel Prince series but with less royalty and more romance. There were parts of it that I really liked and parts of it that I didn't enjoy as much, but I can attribute some of my struggles getting into the book to this being the first week of a new semester. The world-building was interesting; there are sprygans (which are basically tree fae) and then hybrids (half-human, half-sprygan), and they have certain abilities like good hearing and sight among other things. My favorite ability was heartfire, which enables a character to keep another alive through love.
The pacing was probably my biggest issue with the book. Parts of it were super fast-paced which was good, but I also got bored at times because the pacing slowed drastically. I can't really describe the plot because it almost felt like a bunch of side-quests...every time I thought I knew where the story was going, it changed direction. There was action, yes, but there was also a lot of scheming and just existing in certain places.
Of the characters, Hyde/Greg was my favorite just because he seems to have an intriguing backstory that I really wanted to get details too but never did. Axly wasn't bad as far as protagonists go. I liked her character and her strength. Grim wasn't my favorite but I didn't mind him (although he named his dog Cleatus and I can't get over that). Of the rest of the characters, I liked most of them but there were a lot to remember and I got them mixed up occasionally. I can't say my other favorite without spoiling anything, but he shows up halfway through and I don't really have a reason for liking him.
If the Cruel Prince series gave you a book hangover or you're just in the mood for ruthless fae-like creatures, E. L. Lyons's Starlight Jewel is a great story filled with action, adventure, and romance.
3.75/5

1) the gay golden retriever/black cat trope is the best
2) Tori is literally me
3) this series fills me with so much happiness when reading it

REREAD REVIEW:
I stand firm in my belief that rivals to lovers is infinitely better than enemies to lovers.

This was my second time reading Divine Rivals, and it was every bit as enchanting as I remember. The prose is beautifully written (I am so jealous of Iris and Roman and their ability to write amazing sentences on a whim) and the story is wonderfully done. Set in a fantasy world similar to the WWI era and filled with rich mythology that reminded me a bit of the Persephone myth, it's probably the only "romantasy" I actually enjoyed.
Iris and Roman are journalists competing for a columnist section in their newspaper, but their journey takes them to the war front. While it's not a story filled with action-packed explosion scenes, I actually preferred its slower pacing and focus on fleshing out Iris and Roman as characters. (Also, the ending is cruel...)
There's a handful of side characters, but the main focus of the novel is clearly Iris and Roman. I really liked Iris's character. She's strong but still relatable and I enjoyed reading her articles as well as her internal monologues. Roman's POVs are less frequent but just as enjoyable, especially because he falls for Iris long before she falls for him. The way he describes her...Roman Kitt is setting the standards way too high. Their romance is well-written and based on genuine love and not lust.
Divine Rivals is a beautifully written novel about the truths of war and the strength of love in the face of darkness, and I am so excited to read the next one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Roman. Crazy. Kitt.
There is no way that everyone is fighting over Rhysand and Xaden when Roman Kitt exists.

"She and Roman would survive this war. They would have the chance to grow old together, year by year. They would be friends until they both finally acknowledged the truth. And they would have everything that other couples had---the arguments and the hand-holding in the market and the gradual exploration of their bodies and the birthday celebrations and the journeys to new cities and the living as one and sharing a bed and the gradual sense of melting into each other. Their names would be entwined---Roman and Iris or Winnow and Kitt because could you truly have one without the other?---and they would write on their typewriters and ruthlessly edit each other's pieces and read books by candlelight at night"(425).

The worldbuilding is exquisite, the writing is divine (get what I did there?), and the characters and romance are so amazingly well-written.

Spoiler

Also...that ending? I am so freaking excited for book two. Hopefully it gives me what I wanted from Marie Lu's Steelstriker but didn't get.

"'It's not a crime to feel joy, even when things seem hopeless. Iris, look at me. You deserve all the happiness in the world. And I intend to see that you have it'"(508).
Link to Libby Annotations

When I saw that She Who Rides the Storm was compared to There Will Come a Darkness, it immediately moved to the top of my TBR and less than a day later my hold was ready from the e-book library.
I'm honestly still not sure how I feel about this book. On one hand, it was a bit of a slog to get through. Some of the chapters in the e-book version I had were 68 pages long. Parts of it were relatively fast-paced while others I had to force myself to continue reading. But then I got to the end...
I did call one of the plot twists for ironic reasons (

Spoiler

I made a highlight saying that it was nice that Mateo's dad actually cared about him and then realized there was probably a reason for that

), but the other one I was completely blindsided by and I still can't believe it.
I think the main issue I had with the book was that it was advertised as a "heist" novel, so I had very high expectations going into it. However, the heist itself was a very small percentage of the novel...like, there was never a "big heist."
The characters themselves were probably my favorite part of the book. I liked the backstories because they were very intricate and all tied together in unexpected ways. I will say that my opinions on the POVs shifted throughout the book, but Anwei's was probably my least favorite, followed by Lia. I liked Knox a lot at first, but he was steadily replaced by Mateo by the end of the book (because apparently, I have a type in favorite book characters ... sarcastic sad boys).
While She Who Rides the Storm isn't exactly the grand heist novel that I expected, it still packs a punch with crazy plot twists and really intriguing worldbuilding. YA fantasy readers looking for a gateway into adult fantasy should check out this duology.
3.75/5
Link to Libby Annotations